Improve Onboarding With a New Hire Survey (Survey Questions Included)

So, you’ve heard the clarion call: It’s time to improve your onboarding process. Or maybe you’ve already made some changes but want to know whether or not they’re actually making a difference. What’s next?

Well, the simplest way to find out what is and isn’t working in your process is to ask recent new hires with an onboarding survey. Our HR team started doing this recently and has had great success. With a bit of planning, you can use a new-hire survey to ask thoughtful questions that will help you get crucial feedback for improving your onboarding process.

What are the benefits of an onboarding survey?

The feedback you get from sending an onboarding satisfaction survey can help you improve your organization in many ways. Here are a few we’ve seen:

Better Onboarding: This one seems like a no-brainer, but we can’t overstate the importance of effective onboarding. Studies (ours included) have proven that effective onboarding is tied to increased employee connection, culture integration, performance, engagement, job satisfaction, and more. So, by improving one process, you can make huge improvements across the organization.

Reduced Turnover: While this is likely due to multiple HR efforts and not just the onboarding survey we give new employees, BambooHR has reduced turnover by 30 percent in the past year. Getting early feedback from new employees can help you make changes that will keep them around and improve onboarding and the workplace for future new hires.

Better Employer Brand: An onboarding survey can notify you of issues and give you time to make changes before negative reviews make it to other candidates. That’s important, because candidates trust their fellow employees three times more than employers to provide accurate information about working conditions. At the end of our onboarding survey, we ask candidates to leave a Glassdoor review so that we can 1) get more feedback and 2) tell prospective employees what it’s really like to interview and work here.

While feedback should be sought and welcomed all over the organization, feedback about onboarding might be some of the most important. New hires are in a delicate stage of employment, and ensuring that their experience is the best possible is crucial.

How can I distribute my new-hire survey?

You could send your onboarding satisfaction survey the old-fashioned way, via email or even on paper, but there are much better and easier tools. We use Google Forms for our onboarding surveys. We’re able to get anonymous responses and analyze all of one respondent’s answers or look for trends by checking out all responses given for each individual question. Plus, it’s free.

What should I consider when creating my onboarding survey?

While it’s great to find examples of effective post-onboarding surveys, you have to take the time to create and implement a survey in a way that’s unique to your organization. Our HR team took BambooHR’s unique factors into account when creating our onboarding questionnaire:

Recruiting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Goals: Our recruiting team has identified the KPIs that show whether they’re effectively meeting business goals. Some of the questions in our survey help them figure out whether they’re hitting these KPIs and their goals. How’s that for strategic HR?

Company Values: Your company’s values should give you a decent idea of what kind of experience you want your new employees to have. Use your onboarding satisfaction survey to gauge whether or not the values are being lived and instilled in new hires.

Specific Industry and Hiring Market:It’s likely that some of the response options in our survey (like Utah-based institutions KSL and BYU Bridge) won’t mean anything to you or your new hires. That’s because they’re very specific to our hiring market. When creating your survey, make sure you think about the unique factors in your industry or area and include relevant questions that will help you navigate these spaces more effectively.

Your new-hire survey is your opportunity to improve one of the most impactful processes in your organization: onboarding. Take the time to think through what’s important to your recruiting team, organization, and unique market. Doing so will help you create an onboarding questionnaire that’s best suited for your organization.

While putting the questions together may feel slightly daunting, creating a new-hire survey can help you improve your onboarding process and reap many benefits. Plus, after you’ve created the survey, sending it out is easy. To give you some ideas and set you on the right direction, here are the questions BambooHR includes in our onboarding satisfaction survey:

BambooHR’s Onboarding Survey Questions

1. How did you hear about BambooHR prior to being hired? Check all that apply:

Friend or family member (NOT a BambooHR employee)

Friend or family member (who IS a BambooHR employee)

Billboard

Media/News Sources

Used BambooHR software at a previous company

A recruiter reached out to me

Other

2. When did you apply to BambooHR?

3. Where did you research BambooHR before/during the hiring process?

I didn’t research BambooHR before or during the hiring process

BambooHR’s website

Glassdoor

LinkedIn

YouTube

Facebook

Media/News Sources

Other:

4. Where did you FIRST see the job ad for your current position?

Job search on Indeed

Job search on Glassdoor

Job search on Craigslist

Job search on SimplyHired

Job search on BYU Bridge

Job search on KSL

BambooHR careers page

My friend/family member shared the job ad directly with me

A recruiter reached out to me

Other:

5. If you viewed our Glassdoor page, how much of a factor did it play in enticing you to apply to BambooHR? (Rank 1-6)

7. I clearly understood the qualifications necessary in order to be successful in the role. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)

8. I got a good sense of what the culture is like at BambooHR. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)9. I got excited about the position. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)10. I was unsure of what the job responsibilities really entailed. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)

11. It was easy for me to determine whether or not I was qualified for the role. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)12. The advertised benefits motivated me to apply. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)13. I clicked through these links in the job ad (check all that apply):

16. After applying and throughout the interview process, the recruiter I worked with was responsive and kept me updated. (Rank Strongly Disagree-Strongly Agree)

17. Did you complete a HireVue video interview prior to being interviewed in person?

Yes

No

18. Did you have an initial phone screen/interview prior to being interviewed in person?

Yes

No

19. How did the office tour with a recruiter impact your perception of BambooHR?

20. What general feedback do you have about your office tour experience?In order to answer the questions in this section, think back to any face-to-face interviews (either in person or via video conference) you had with us prior to being hired.

Kelsie Davis is a copywriter for BambooHR. Her mission is to help HR create more strategic and impactful initiatives by researching, analyzing, and writing about all things HR—particularly topics helping HR professionals engage, attract, and retain employees.